Mackowski stood, buttoning his coat.
Tony gawked. “That’s it?”
“That’s it. Thanks for playing, gentlemen. And gentlewoman. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around, but it’s the August recess, and I’m going on vacation.”
David Montreff looked very pleased. He and the Mackowskis quickly swarmed around their boss like fighter jets escorting a plane, and they walked out.
Mackowski’s assurance that there would be no Senate vote on the bill consumed the media for the next few days until The Pastor’s nationally coordinated Loyalty March of August 11. The footage of thousands of people clotting together in city streets around the country, heads freshly shaved, trading razor blades and box cutters, was arresting to say the least. I watched, fascinated, as they held their comrades’ skulls to the pavement and carved crosses into each other’s scalps. Then they marched en masse, from Anaheim to Atlanta, Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon, bare-chested, chanting, bleeding from the crucifix wounds, blood pooling in their ears, eyes, and down their throats. They carried signs demanding that their savior ascend, that their new nation form, tagging their mark on highway dividers, road signs, and retail shops. From his worlde, The Pastor promised, “If all ninety million of my voters refuse to obey, if we rampage, they cannot stop us!”
Windows smashed, cars burning, riot police mostly unable to bring order, some unspecified number of people killed and injured, but this was not our concern. With D.C. in lockdown and the closest disturbance in Baltimore, it was merely a discomfiting distraction. We scrambled for other avenues to pass the bill. I told Peter:
“It’s incredible how the rules that govern our imaginary nation-state polities have become more real than those that govern our economic superstructure. Or our biosphere, for that matter.”
Peter admitted: “It’s a rock and a hard place, I’ll give you that. You know me and Wimpel have a relationship with the guy, right?”
“Senator Mackowski? I was aware that your paths had crossed, I suppose.”
Peter looked to Haniya, who was fixing peanut butter and banana sandwiches for the children. Her dark gaze met Peter’s. He said: “You don’t get into the hedge fund game without a strong meat hook in Congress. Me and Mack belong to all the same clubs and bullshit. I’ve seen his old-man cock in a steam room, bro.”
“What are you suggesting?”
Peter nodded to Haniya. “He likes you! He thinks you’re spunky, and he thinks I’m a hoot!”
“Yeah, Pete, so what are you saying?”
“Let’s you and me go work on him.”
I said: “You think he’ll change his mind about the legislation based on your sense of humor?”
Peter looked offended. “Damn, bro, this whole time I thought I slayed you.” He moved around the kitchen island and slapped me on the shoulder. “We track him down and make a better pitch than your crew of geeks could ever manage.”
Truly anything was worth an attempt at that point. That night, Peter and Haniya left Noor and Gregory in my care to follow the Senate majority leader on his vacation. For two days, I’ve solemnly handled my duties with the children and reread the paper on the Svalbard tsunami. When Dr. Pietrus first coined the phrase “Tombstone Domino Theory” in his book, I found it distastefully alarmist. However, the vast stores of methane now being detected exiting from the seabed around Greenland and the Arctic Ocean make his theory increasingly, unnervingly, plausible. The chance that this methane abruptly flips the planet’s climate into a more toxic configuration reminiscent of the end-Permian extinction is no longer outside the realm of possibility. In fact, I believe we now have to countenance this as a realistic scenario.
This was what I was contemplating tonight when Secretary Rathbone called.
The news, he said, would soon be reporting a dramatic set of events, and there would be Secret Service cars on the way to take me and my family into protective custody. He’d barely explained the circumstances before I saw my mother calling on the other line. She rarely did so anymore, as her mind had deteriorated badly in the last year. That is where I’ll leave this account. I do not have the temerity to finish it. When I put Secretary Rathbone on hold to answer my mother’s call, she was hysterical, wailing incoherently. Or so I thought, until I finally grasped that she wasn’t. She’d seen the news herself and had been struck by one moment of awful clarity in her otherwise failing brain. I could not find the proper words to console her, but I’m sure she will never forgive me for what I said next:
“We must consider, Mumma, as dreadful as this is, that it may very well help us pass critical legislation.”
T
HE
T
RIGGER AND THE
K
ING
2037
Tawrny greets you at the door with his gun. He doesn’t point it at you, but the piece trembles by his side, his finger twitching near the trigger guard.
“Was wondering if that job was still available, T. The one you told me about.”
His eyes go wide with surprise and joy. “Oh, that’s good, Keeper. Boy, that’s terrific to hear. That’s just so terrific.” He looks at the weapon in his hand almost as if he’s forgotten it’s there and quickly sets it on a stack of old coupon flyers on an end table.
You’re soaked in sweat and dizzy from the walk. Another brutal summer heat storm. Mostly you’re worried that you and your family might goddamn well bake too. Can’t let that happen, so you made the walk out to Cassingham Hollow.
Tawrny has shriveled further; he’s lost so much weight so quickly that the skin around his face pools beneath his neck; he’s liver-spotted, his white mane thinning and pink scalp emerging. The house is trashed, the floor a sea of empty cat food tins, reeking of fish. The window AC unit rumbles noisily. He scrapes coupon mailers from a kitchen chair and takes a seat. For upward of a year he’d been repeating, Job’s coming up. You sure you don’t want it? It’s right around the corner. Summer sometime. Now he looks like he can’t believe you’ve said yes. “Why’d you. Um…” He searches for words. “What all made you change your mind?”
Your tongue slithers in and out of the holes between your teeth. Five missing and another two that ache something awful, but you’ve gotten good at putting aside small miseries.
“Look around, man. Any way to make money these days, man’s gotta jump on it.”
“You been working at all?”
“Scrapped some. The Rev still pays me to go out with him and Ginna. But other’n that…”
Tawrny nods and nods as if this is exciting news. “Yeah, that’s good. That’s real good.”
“So what’s the job? And how likely am I to spend the next twenty years in prison for it?”
Tawrny waves this away. “No, no, no. The gal told me this was gonna be some real good money. Like send-your-kid-to-college money.”
“What do they want with me again? Ain’t I on a, like, terrorism watch list or something?”
“You’ll be good and taken care of,” he says.
He goes to a kitchen drawer and rummages out an old cell phone, the kind without internet only used by drug dealers and hired killers. With quivering thumbs, Tawrny punches a storm into the phone. One of the cabinets hangs open and you can see the bottles packed in, mostly whiskey and gin, many of them empty.
“Now we wait a bit, but this is good. I’ll get my finder’s fee, and you and your gal, you’ll be set up.” He nods to himself and cat food tins clink and scatter as he shuffles back to his chair.
“No idea what’s the job?”
“I’m not privy to that kind of information, son. But it’ll be worth it. Don’t worry about that.” He’s nodding like his head is stuck in that motion. “Soon as I know, I’ll pass on the info to you. Here.” And he goes back to the drawer to hand you another burner. “I’ll text you on this.”